


controlled airspace

by bellmaree



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-27
Updated: 2013-02-27
Packaged: 2017-12-03 19:02:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/701600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellmaree/pseuds/bellmaree
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>1980s british airways AU; zayn is a pilot, niall is first officer, harry and louis are flight attendants, liam is a miner on strike. people are hard to read sometimes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	controlled airspace

_"LIMA OSCAR VICTOR ECHO"_

**i. london, england | march 1983**

It just wouldn’t have been a normal flight, had Louis not _just barely_ slid into Heathrow Airport in time for departure.

“I swear to God those customs blokes are setting the divider ropes higher and higher each flight; it’s fucking Olympic-level hurdles out there,” he griped. “I’m telling you, they’ve got it out for me. It’s that Nick, he really doesn’t need to hold such a grudge, I only put sugar packets in his shoes once.”

He tossed his standard-issue suitcase into the overhead compartment and grinned cheekily at the stewardesses and Harry, the only other male flight attendant. This resulted in a peal of loose laughter from the flight’s roguish first officer, who was leaning against the “wall” next to the kitchenette, running a hand through his hair and sipping a Coke.

A good-natured Irish brogue sighed from the cockpit door, “Are we gonna fly this plane or what, Malik? Quit laughing and joking about and get back in here.”

With a somewhat sarcastic salute to the flight attendants and a deliberate wink to Louis and Harry, Zayn downed the last of his soft drink and turned on his heel to the cockpit, grabbing a bag of Maltesers for flight engineer Niall before he slid the door shut. A confident male voice came over the intercom system, pausing for a moment before gently encouraging everyone to take their seats and buckle their lap belts as the plane prepared to take off. Louis pulled a face in Harry’s general direction as he tapped on the whistle attached to his fluorescent yellow inflatable life vest, going through the safety lecture motions and trying his best to ignore Harry’s softly scolding looks and wide, dimpled grin.

As they took their seats on the aisle, Harry narrowly slid in beside Louis, his long legs beating stewardess Jesy to the seat with an apologetic but satisfied look in his eyes. He buckled his seatbelt. “You know, Lou, if you left your flat just _ten_ minutes earlier-”

Louis turned to face Harry, raising an eyebrow and giving him a look like he was missing the whole point.

“Then there’s really no fun in it, is there?”

**ii. paris, france | july 1983**

Congregating in their hotel lobbies was something the male portion of the British Airways flight crew was eerily brilliant at; it happened accidentally and it happened quite often. Not that anyone was complaining, of course. Who else would they spend time with in all these beautiful foreign countries other than their (sometimes infuriating but mostly charming) co-workers?

The group of them didn’t say much of anything when they gathered like lions around the watering hole (in this case, in front of the _bureau d'information_ ). In fact, they just sort of muttered indiscriminately and gravitated outside in their Bermuda shorts and light tops. The first real sound anyone uttered turned out to be a collective hiss of pain as the French sun glared into their eyes. Niall squinted and brayed a low sound of disapproval as he pulled his cap lower over his eyes to shade them. He tugged the wide straps of his tank top to the side and pressed still-chilled fingers against the back of his neck in an effort to cool himself.

Louis groaned, sighing, “You sure we’re in France, mate? And not, like, Mali or something? This is outrageous.” He frowned at Zayn and Niall, as if to blame their flight responsibility for the weather.

“It _is_ July,” Harry offered helpfully, his eyes wide but watering. Regardless, he pushed a floppy mess of curls back from his forehead and wiped beads of sweat off his brow.

Niall nudged Zayn, who was suffering wordlessly beside them with a woebegone look on his face. His sunglasses and cigarette seemed effortlessly French and endlessly disinterested. “D’you even know where Mali _is_ , man?”

“Africa,” Zayn said, without hesitation. Louis raised an eyebrow, pleasantly surprised at Zayn’s geographical facility, undiscovered as of a moment ago. Niall and Harry clapped politely as the four of them began to wander down the cobblestone pavement towards the river. (Their pilot was off somewhere on his own, probably to procure prostitutes or something; his advancing age was certainly not the only thing that separated him from the younger set on flights.)

Harry and Niall popped into a bread shop ( _boulangerie_ , Harry had declared with surprising proficiency; Louis figured today was the Day of Hidden Talents) to grab a few oven-warm baguettes for the foursome’s walk along the Paris streets, leaving Louis and Zayn to their own devices.

They stood outside the bakery for a moment, deeply inhaling the warm-bread scent in silence until Louis began to mill about aimlessly. His feet weren’t quite tripping over themselves, but doing _something_ that looked more like dancing than waddling to Zayn. Zayn followed suit almost immediately, shuffling his black suede shoes in a feeble attempt to match Louis’ flighty feet. The two began poking their heads into nearby shops, their disheveled appearances seeming to irritate the shopkeepers, who babbled at them in rapid-fire French. At this, they smiled sheepishly and poked back out again, laughing a bit and clutching at each other’s shirtbacks to avoid tripping over the single step leading to the doorways.

Niall and Harry emerged with what looked to Louis like a thousand loaves of bread, tossing three to him and keeping the other nine hundred for themselves. Zayn snorted but took a drag off his cigarette instead of saying anything, which was probably for the better.

“You do _not_ want to know how many francs we just spent,” Harry said, his low voice laced with a good dose of his dimpled grin. Nodding, Niall didn’t even have the gall to look sheepish. This didn’t surprise Louis in the slightest; he knew Niall took his food seriously.

Shrugging, Harry added, “But then, who even knows the exchange rate from pounds to francs?”

Louis responded quickly, “Eight francs to a pound,” surprising the others for a change. _Success_ , he thought triumphantly.

Zayn pushed his sunglasses down his nose so he could take a good look at Louis. “Good go. Now, I don’t know about you, but when in France, drink wine, yeah? Wine and bread, classy stuff. Get on the river, have a good time with our classy half-meal, relax?”

The other boys seemed keen, so Zayn and Louis took another gander into the _caviste_ (thanks again to Harry), this time working a little harder to dazzle the women working the counter. They emerged with two bottles of wine and mischievous smiles on their faces, their wallets feeling only slightly lighter.

The idea was that they would all somehow pile into one boat and drink and eat together, but the boats were kind of small, so they split up. Harry was the tallest and Louis the shortest, but Niall wasn’t letting the majority of the bread go on without him, so Zayn and Louis ended up in one boat with their meager rations and Harry and Niall were in the other. Niall and Harry hollered something at Louis and Zayn, whose boatman had untied the whole rig away from the little anchor on the sidewalk, but the increasing distance between the boats allowed their apathy to go unnoticed.

Louis wasted no time twisting open the bottle of wine with the bottle opener keychain he had bought from the souvenir shop during last week’s stopover in Las Vegas, narrowly missing soaking the crotch of Zayn’s pants with the slight overflow.

“You’re lucky that didn’t go the way I fully expected it to,” Zayn said flatly, chasing it with an incongruous twinkle in his eye that quickly soothed Louis’ frozen spine.

Rolling his eyes, Louis offered the bottle to Zayn. “Fine. For that ‘near miss’ you can have first go.”

Tipping his head in silent gratitude, Zayn briefly traced his tongue over his lower lip and lifted the bottle to his mouth, humming in appreciation as he swallowed. His bicep and shoulder flexed with the effort of lifting the near-full bottle with only one arm; it took Louis both to take it from him when he was done.

The two of them tore into the baguette, the crust flaking slightly and steam fogging up the inside of the bag from the still-piping, soft insides. Zayn’s mouth was full of bread already, but he tucked the pad of his thumb into his mouth and sucked off the butter thoughtfully. Frowning around the starch like a disgruntled chipmunk, he abruptly ripped off another little piece, mainly crust, tossing it at Louis’ head. With his eyebrows furrowed, he pointed at Louis, who blinked quickly as crumbs smacked him in the eyelid.

Zayn swallowed, his Adam’s apple dipping. “Don’t fucking drink it all! I’ve barely had any.”

“Please, you’ve had plenty,” scoffed Louis. “Like three-quarters of what’s left is mine! Not my fault you decided to drink first and eat bread later.” Biting his lip in concentration, he retaliated with a larger piece of bread. Of course, Zayn caught it in his mouth with a muffled giggle of triumph as he chewed. Louis harrumphed and socked Zayn in the arm in response.

“Pilot’s reflexes,” Zayn explained with a smirk. “Might wanna get yourself some.”

**iii. bangkok, thailand | october 1983**

“An elephant ride? You’ve got to be joking,” Louis exclaimed, face incredulous as he gazed at Zayn in the hallway between their rooms. They were stationed on the seventh floor of the (surprisingly fancy, Louis had to admit) hotel, which was smack in the middle of the building.

Whether this was a positive or negative reaction, neither one was entirely sure. Zayn shrugged, but let loose an easy grin that took Louis by surprise. “I dunno, I kind of liked the idea. I mean, Josh is keeping Niall company ‘cause Niall’s got food poisoning from that kebab cart on the street I _told_ him was going to end badly, and he figured we should use his reservation instead of cancelling. And, I guess, I mean, we’re not as… _adventurous_ as he is or anything, but Harry wasn’t on call and he would’ve gone with Nialler and I just thought I’d ask.”

Louis paused for a second, his gaze raking over Zayn’s face, lingering for a second on his teeth tugging against his bottom lip and his raised eyebrows. Oh, he was waiting for an answer.

Nodding slowly, Louis grinned back. “Sounds great, actually. Riding one of the world’s most majestic animals for absolutely free, except for whatever future favour Nialler will certainly be calling in? Highly ideal, don’t you think?”

“Definitely,” Zayn agreed. He wrapped one hand around the thick camera strap around his neck and the other around Louis’ bicep; his fingers splayed out against Louis’ arm as he tugged him with a firm grip toward the hotel elevator. Zayn meant _now_? Well, he _did_ already have his wallet with him.

Every time they were in Southeast Asia, the BA flight crew always kind of fumbled their way through, their boyish (and feminine, Perrie always chimed in) charms their only ally. This trip was no different.

They weren’t entirely sure how much money they gave the driver of their taxi in payment for their journey, but at least Zayn managed to recognise the sign for the elephant tours and thank the driver profusely in mangled Malay. The driver responded in smooth English, “Not a problem. Thank you very much.” The flush that passed over Zayn’s face made the whole exchange worth it, and Louis bit his lip, trying not to grin like a fool.

Zayn pouted, and he turned to Louis, who was still trying to cover up the smile threatening to split his face in two. “Don’t you dare say anything,” he warned, his frown wobbling at the corners as he stifled a laugh. Louis smothered his own laughter into Zayn’s collarbone.

Batting him away, Zayn grasped Louis’ wrist and tugged him further down the pathway, his long strides somehow getting impossibly longer as the bray of an elephant cut through the trees. Louis’ legs struggled nearly three steps to one of Zayn’s and he wondered if this was really the best idea. He looked up at Zayn to say so but shut his mouth at the stars in Zayn’s eyes as he cantered toward the clearing, tickets clutched tight in his hand. Louis wondered when Zayn’s legs got so skinny and glanced down at his own thighs briefly before running into a motionless Zayn.

“What the-” Louis shook his head to clear it, popping up onto his tiptoes to see over Zayn’s backpack and shoulders.

He was acutely aware of the loss of contact when Zayn let go of Louis’ wrist and lifted his camera. _“Oh,”_ he breathed before snapping three quick shots in succession, the elephants waving their trunks before them.

They wandered closer, arms and shoulders pressed seamlessly against each other like the humidity was superglue. A young woman stopped assisting a small family to approach them, asking for their reservation and tickets; Louis had to pry the paper out of Zayn’s hand, handing over the tickets with an apologetic smile. Zayn was wandering now, unsupervised and awestruck, snapping pictures of the elephants with wide eyes.

Louis let the silence overtake them but soon found that they didn’t need to say much anyway; the general directions the organisers gave were easy enough to follow without question and the family’s nasal chatter filled the rest of the empty air. Prodding Zayn with an exaggerated grin, Louis finally tried to coax some words out of him. “Hey, Annie Leibovitz.”

“She takes photos of people,” Zayn said, turning his head to look Louis in the eye.

“So can you,” said Louis, shuffling over to the nearest elephant’s head and making his most tourist-y face: two thumbs up, eyes wide, and tongue out. All he was missing was a fanny pack, Louis decided.

Zayn, of course, rolled his eyes but moved closer. “Here, we’ll do this,” he said, pressing his head closer to Louis’ and approximating a good angle. He flipped the lens backwards and grinned with his tongue between his teeth, mumbling, “Cheese,” before snapping a picture of the three of them (elephant included).

Frowning and tousling his hair, Louis insisted, “No, no, we have to take more, I wasn’t ready for that one.”

“Stop whinging and we’ll take more,” Zayn sighed, bumping Louis’ shoulder with his own. Satisfied, Louis smiled brightly into the camera lens, leaning his head on Zayn’s shoulder and pointing at the elephant behind them.

“Silly ones now,” announced Louis impetuously, chin tilted upward to stare at Zayn, who sighed and nodded slowly.

How Zayn managed to take the photo with his eyes crossed and nose scrunched Louis didn’t know, but the rough skin beneath his lips as he pressed his mouth to Zayn’s cheek was warm when the flash went off. The elephant brayed loudly, startling them, and the developed film would later reveal they were laughing in the next three photographs.

**iv. new york, new york | december 1983/january 1984**

Louis was the one who was most excited for New York, because no matter how often they flew there (which was _often_ ; being based out of London made most major cities familiar to a fault) it always seemed different. But New York in winter, that terrible balance of breathtakingly beautiful and disgustingly cold that Louis thrived on, was particularly memorable.

Or, rather, it wasn’t, because it was New Year’s Eve and everyone had piled into a too-small booth and was downing drinks like they never were going to fly planes ever again. The girls were giggling and cooing at the men entering the club but dancing with each other, frowning at any of the men who approached further, with the exception of Jade waving her arms and shimmying wildly with Niall, who seemed a little bit outdone by her enthusiasm but was trying anyway.

Harry, Louis, and Zayn were running through their favourite flights and stopovers of 1983 with the kind of nostalgia afforded only by a few drinks (okay, more than a few) and a soundtrack of the year’s top 40 pop hits soaring through the bar.

“Oh, oh, remember, remember Rome! How Niall accidentally offended that group of women leaving that shrine to the vestal virgins,” laughed Harry, his low, usually syrupy voice surprisingly loud and crisp, his head trying to burrow into Louis’ too-big red sweater. Just because there was enough room for him in there didn’t mean he had to occupy it, but Louis relented, his fingers carding through Harry’s hair lazily. He looked over at Zayn, who was staring intently at his drink as if it held the meaning of the universe.

“Yeah, but the only reason he got out of that square with all his limbs intact is because you and Z went in there with your sorriest puppy faces on and dragged him out by his ears,” Louis chortled, tossing back the last of his drink with gusto.

Zayn shrugged. “Hey, whatever works, yeah?” He smouldered across the booth in Harry and Louis’ direction, the dim lights serving as a spotlight on his sharp features. He raised his glass and Harry tapped his own against it, a grin splitting his face open handsomely. They, too, finished their drinks in single gulps.

Niall and the girls bounded over, _some_ how still full of energy, yelling that it was ten minutes to midnight and if they wanted to get over to Times Square before the fireworks they had to “Get a fucking move on, ya wankers!”

They couldn’t exactly argue with that.

Everyone grabbed their bags and coats and cameras and novelty hats and glasses, and after a weird moment wherein Zayn and Harry realised they were wearing each other’s leather jackets (this was noticed by Perrie with a hiccupping laugh), the excitement in the air was as palpable as their breath as the eight of them got closer and closer to Times Square.

Obviously, everyone was intoxicated to varying degrees, but that only made it more fun when the group reached the throng of people who just wanted to see the fireworks from the center of the world. The girls were wrapped around each other, fingers intertwined and belting that song from Flashdance ( _“What a feeling! Bein’s believin’!”_ ).

Niall had one arm slung around Harry’s shoulder, the other holding tight to Zayn’s camera. Zayn slid a hand into Harry’s and Louis’ back pockets. Harry wiggled his backside playfully in response, and Louis managed to cough out a nervous laugh, slipping his hand into the same pocket to scratch lightly at Zayn’s wrist.

Jade’s squeal of excitement was the first indication that the one-minute countdown had begun. There was an anticipation and a nervousness that settled over the crowd, an eager feeling for the new year and a last-minute scramble for people to find someone to kiss at midnight.

_“Thirty! Twenty-nine! Twenty-eight!”_ the crowd called, and Harry flew into the crowd. He wouldn’t have a problem finding somebody, not with his soft curls and wide eyes and lopsided grin that sent hearts into a tizzy. Neither would the single girls; in fact, Leigh-Anne and Perrie had already snared a pair of twins who looked slightly intimidated but interested nonetheless.

Niall, Louis, and Zayn stood side by side in the middle of the square, shuddering with excitement in the icy air and the warmth of the sheer number of bodies in the vicinity. Niall clicked Zayn’s camera into shooting position, sure that something worth capturing would happen in a matter of moments. _”Fifteen, fourteen!”_

Louis briefly wondered if he had any New Year’s resolutions. _“Ten! Nine!”_ Take more chances, he decided.

He flexed his fingers and realised Zayn’s hand was still in his back pocket. He decided that he didn’t mind that much. “Zayn?” Louis’ voice was nearly swallowed by the countdown as Louis looked up at him. _“Three, two!”_

“Fuck it,” Louis muttered. Or at, least, he meant to, because suddenly one hand in his pocket turned into two and Zayn’s mouth on his swallowed any words he had wanted to say. He made a keening noise and threaded his fingers into Zayn’s hair, fingertips clutching at the back of his head as if to press him _closerclosercloser._

All Louis could hear was white noise and all he saw were fireworks (probably literally, but he figured he was allowed some poetic license), his lips parting and letting Zayn lick hungrily into his mouth. Louis moaned, his arms thrown haphazardly around Zayn’s neck and his nails scratching against the base of Zayn’s scalp. He slid his mouth down Zayn’s jaw to suck into his collarbone and he heard a panted, sibilant, “Yes, yes, _yes,”_ that sent a bolt of lightning down his spine, and Zayn’s hands in his back pockets rolled his hips forward, the yeses sliding into a desperate groan of _“Louis,_ Lou, please, Lou, please.”

Zayn pulled his head back with some effort and licked his lips slowly, a dark look in his eyes and a red flush on his cheeks, a faint bruise blossoming on his neck where Louis sucked a mark not moments earlier. Swallowing hard, Louis breathed, “Happy New Year?”

“Happy New Year’s fuckin’ right,” Niall called from a short distance away, waving the camera and handing it to Zayn with a crow of laughter. “You’ll be wantin’ those pictures, if I do say so meself.”

**v. london, england | february 1984**

Niall always held that what happens over international waters stays there, kind of a Las Vegas type of school of thought. Still slightly sunburned on the back of his neck from the last stopover in Barcelona, Louis figured it was true enough, but surely he and Zayn had more sense than to do what they did.

Louis wanted to blame it on being young, making mistakes, being too in love to care about the rules, but that’s what you did when you were thirteen, not when you were in your mid-twenties trying to make a career of something you love and a terrible split-second decision fucks it all up. He and Zayn had no one to blame, and much as he hated himself for it, Louis did the sensible thing and decided to let the consequences take their course.

_I was in for it,_ he thought, unable to stop the wistful smile from flitting across his face. He laced his fingers together subconsciously and lifted them to his mouth, wishing that they still smelled like airplane oxygen and two different brands of hand lotion.

It was Zayn’s last flight before he was fully qualified to become a full-on pilot; he would finally have enough hours of experience as first officer after the flight from London to Cancún. That should have been reason enough to deter them from trying any kind of shenanigans onboard, especially because Zayn was so invaluable to the cockpit operation and all that, Louis thought, but of course, they were stupid and enchanted by each other and figured they were experienced enough at this that they could get away with it.

Zayn got one break through the nearly eleven-hour flight to eat and use the toilet and stretch his legs, but he decided to use it to tug Louis into the heinously small toilet, growling into his ear, “Been too long already, need to see you come.”

That, of course, was more than enough to get Louis on board with the idea. “Yeah, yeah, okay,” he gasped, mouth feverish and careless against Zayn’s, his head tilted up and his eyes dark. His standard-issue neckerchief wasn’t even undone as Zayn snapped his shirt open to rake his nails across Louis’ chest; Louis’ breath caught as Zayn trailed his tongue over his nipples and down his stomach. He struggled to swallow a desperate moan when Zayn unbuttoned his trousers, pulling the zipper down with his teeth. Zayn’s eyes as they gazed up at Louis, heavy-lidded and debauched, were nearly enough to set him off, with all that _brown_ and those fucking _eyelashes_.

“C’mon, Zayn,” Louis muttered, his cock straining against his briefs (green stripes, what was he thinking), his eyes slamming shut as Zayn mouthed at the outline of his erection, all hot breath and slight dampness. _“C’mon,”_ he whined again, struggling to keep his voice down. One hand clutched tight around the corner of the plastic counter, the other hand flew to Zayn’s hair as his underwear was pulled down and the head of his cock was engulfed by Zayn’s mouth.

Louis’ head tossed back against the wall and he groaned lowly in the back of his throat. He exhaled in rapid succession, quick breaths shallow and loud as Zayn worked him over, the pressure nearly unbearable in the cramped space.

Zayn’s wrist twisting, he pulled back a moment, humming. “That’s it, that’s it, come on, love.” He laved his tongue over Louis one more time and that was it, back arching and thighs shaking, a ragged moan ripped from his throat.

Mind hazy, Louis faintly registered Zayn coming too, hot in his own hand seconds after Louis’ release. Louis was finding it difficult to distinguish anything from _Zayn, Zayn, Zayn_ and their small, lazy kisses as they tidied themselves up a bit. He did, however, recognise the telltale rattle of the refreshment cart being pushed into its dock in the kitchenette.

“Babe, babe, you’ve gotta get out, they can’t catch you in here,” Louis breathed, haphazardly tugging Zayn’s trousers up for him and pulling a lighter and two loose cigarettes out of his pocket with a pointed look. “You’re not supposed to have these either, you bloody rebel.” He moved to hide them underneath the sink, but in his haste accidentally hit the emergency assistance button. “Fuck!”

“Get out, get _out,”_ Louis hissed, shoving Zayn out of the toilet and hastily locking the door just before three quick raps interrupted his sigh of relief.

He finished snapping his shirt closed and straightened his neckerchief as he opened the door. “Yes?” he asked innocently, a bright grin on his face.

_Damn it,_ it was that pinched little mousy woman unfortunately selected as the purser for the flight instead of Jesy, the usual flight attendant captain. She gasped, her face twisting into a look of sheer horror. Louis’ heart stopped. He couldn’t have forgotten anything, he took care of everything - ?

“Smoking! In the toilets!” _Fuck._

She wasn’t having Louis’ stammered pleas of, “No, they’re not mine, I swear, I’ve worked for British Airways for three years, you don’t think I know the rules by now!” because “Well, then, Tomlinson, whose are they?” And he couldn’t say Zayn’s. He just couldn’t.

Working for the airline was a choice for Louis, because he got to travel and see the world and have fun along the way, but being a pilot was Zayn’s dream, ever since he was a little boy. It was all he wanted in the world, and he was so close he could taste it, and Louis wasn’t going to take that away from Zayn. He just couldn’t throw him under the bus like that.

So he didn’t.

And so Louis was grounded indefinitely, left alone in the emptiest flat he’d ever had in the middle of London, six blocks from the British Airways headquarters and directly beneath the flight path of every plane out of Heathrow. It was the first time in a long time he spent more than a single night drunk, and the first night ever he spent in tears.

**vi. miami, florida | april 1984**

You could have knocked Zayn over with a feather when he found out his first flight as a (in Harry’s terms) “Real Pilot” would be the final voyage of the Boeing 747-400. The British Airways coordinator handed him the well-worn captain’s log, thick with the words of select men before him, the details of the responsibility they had to bear scrawled nearly illegibly upon every page. The strength of the knowledge alone almost left him winded.

But, then again, lately he’d been having trouble breathing just in general.

The thought that he and Louis were... well, they were _something,_ and that it so suddenly was torn apart by Zayn’s fucking _stupid_ mistake made him so mad he saw stars and had to count to ten just to bring himself back.

He wasn’t going to let himself let Louis take the fall. But Louis insisted, tear tracks drying on their cheeks, thumbs brushing against Zayn’s cheekbones and he somehow was convinced to say okay. Zayn didn’t know how to say no to Louis, beautiful Louis with the smile and the hands and the emotions.

Louis had made him promise to not think about him at all while he was flying. “Look, I’m not, like, the best driver or anything, but they tell you not to drive upset or whatever, so you’re not to think about anything but pilot stuff while you’re up there, you got it?” His voice was indignant and his face was fierce but the way he swallowed slowly and prodded a finger into Zayn’s chest let him know all he needed to. “You better not. Niall will be keeping tabs on you, so I’ll know. I’ll find out. So... don’t.”

So besides Niall and brand-new flight engineer Greg spending the entire flight eyeing him like a zoo animal (as though he was going to punch a hole in the window and jump out the cockpit in a manic fit of blind rage and hopeless love), everything was absolutely brilliant about the flight. The rush Zayn got from shifting the controls _just a tad_ and knowing he was responsible for the 500 people in the plane was incomparable. He remembered how daunting the endless lights and buttons and switches seemed when he was eighteen, but now they were familiar as his own right hand.

It was only a few hours later when he sat curled up in the big hotel chair, scrawling the dates and data into the heavy logbook with a tired hand, and when he signed his name at the bottom of the page, he stared at it a moment. There were still a few empty pages in the back of the book, but his name, Zayn realised, was going to be the last thing written in it. His eyes slowly traced the loops of his signature and he shut the book carefully, twisting his pen closed.

Zayn exhaled loudly and leaned his head back, eyes shut, exhausted, when he felt a finger poke his cheek. He opened his eyes and found his nose a centimeter away from a dimpled grinning ghost’s own nose. Starting, he let out a shout, scrambling out of the chair to stare wild-eyed at - “Harry! What the fuck?”

“You look like an old lady,” Harry laughed, pretending to clutch a pocketbook to his chest with an exaggeratedly startled face and pointing to the logbook pressed flush against Zayn’s torso. Zayn exhaled with a breathy laugh and set the book down gingerly on the seat of the chair. On a completely unrelated topic but in the same breath, Harry said, “Let’s go out.”

Shaking his head incredulously, Zayn responded, “Mate, it’s midnight.”

“And?” Harry _clearly_ didn’t see the problem. “It’s also twenty degrees C and we’re in America. Live a little.”

Zayn weighed his options. He could go and call Louis, which he had been meaning to do since they landed. (Before he left, he found himself unpinning his brand-new, still-sparkling pilot’s wings from his chest and closing Louis’ hand around it, murmuring, “Keep it. Please.” He wasn’t that good with words, but he could tell Louis got the message loud and clear from the rather spectacular kiss he got before walking into the airport without Lou for the first time.) He glanced at his reflection, himself on the wall in his uniform and the patch of bright bleached white between the other pins felt like a badge of honour in and of itself.

But he did the math in his head quickly, and, in all likelihood, Louis wasn’t going to be awake right now. And he was still dressed to impress. And his hair _did_ still look all right.

“All right.” He rolled his eyes but grinned at Harry, his tongue between his teeth.

So they found themselves snickering as they ran across the street from their hotel like eight-year-olds, flocking to the strip mall as they would an ice cream truck.

Zayn had an afterthought as glowing neon lights screamed “TATTOOS” and “DANCING” and “CLUB CIELO” into his face. “Oh, shit, what about Niall?”

Harry waved his hand dismissively, ducking into a doorway. “Went to bed. Calling his mum or food coma or something. Come on, Z.”

Something about it didn’t quite settle with him but he let it go as Harry’s dimpled grin, the promise of alcohol, and the press of Harry’s large hand on the small of his back steered him right through the doorway.

**vii. london, england | august 1984**

It took him a few weeks to get back on his feet, but Louis was slowly getting used to the feeling of being alone (which wasn’t to say that whenever the phone rang he didn’t perform Olympic-level hurdles over the furniture to answer it in the hopes that it was Zayn).

By July he was dragging himself out of the house once a week to buy groceries, and by August he was _actually_ changing out of his joggers to do so.

He had a grocery basket full of frozen dinners and quarts of ice cream when he slammed into a stocky body rounding the aisle. Louis closed his eyes and sighed deeply, not even bothering to pick himself up off the floor. He folded his legs like Bambi and rubbed his face with his hands; he was sitting in the middle of the frozen food section of a convenience store (not even a proper grocery store, _Jesus, Louis, get your shit together_ ), surrounded by ice cream cartons and easy-nuke meals and loose potatoes.

“Er,” the body said haltingly. Right. Louis hadn’t just hit a brick wall and collapsed into a mess of human in the aisle; he had hit a real person with a real bag of potatoes that were currently rolling through the shop of their own accord.

Louis couldn’t be bothered to get up, but gazed up at the brick wall apologetically. “Hey, er.” He didn’t care to admit it, but he was a little dumbstruck by the broad-shouldered guy standing in front of him. “Sorry...?”

Broad Shoulders’ face was so concerned, Louis had to blink a few times to make sure he was for real. His buzz cut did little to toughen his baby face but he was built like a house. Louis swallowed hard. _If Zayn got a look at this guy..._

Louis took the hand offered to him and stood up. “Thanks. I’m Louis. Sorry.” His hand was dwarfed by roughness and calluses, which he probably should have been used to by now. He nearly fell back down again laughing at the sheer difference in size before he realised that was probably super rude and bit his tongue.

“No, no, it’s my fault,” the guy stammered, and Louis knit his eyebrows together. “I was coming around the corner so fast and I didn’t even see you. Let me help you pick all this up.”

“Hey, no, it’s totally fine, look, all your potatoes are...” Louis closed his mouth and waved indiscriminately at the mess surrounding them. He shrugged. “Potatoes.” _What?_

“I’m Liam. I’m so sorry, seriously.” He was bending over, scooping up the boxes and stacking them in size order like a Mayan pyramid (of _course_ ). Liam placed the frozen foods gingerly into Louis’ shopping basket. Louis was taken aback by this guy’s kindness. He didn’t even think people like that even existed anymore. He wondered briefly what Liam did for fun. Probably play Monopoly with the ailing children of Britain.

Louis pushed Liam’s hand away when he tried to pick up the basket and hand it to him. He appreciated the help, but he wasn’t an invalid. Louis didn’t know if he could be around a saint in his state. “Look, mate, thanks for the help, but I’m sure you’ve got to go to work or something, yeah? Don’t want to hold you up or anything.”

Liam looked chastened. “No, I work down at the mine over in Northampton.” He considered this. “Well, used to. Strike and that kind of messed that up.” Shrugging, he tossed a few potatoes back in their sack.

“Wait. Northampton? That’s like an hour away. What’re you doing all the way down here for?”

Liam rubbed the back of his neck. “Looking for a new place to stay, actually. Rent’s running a bit high where I’m now, since I’m not working. Have to save money and that. Getting married in the spring, but she lives with her parents right now. Do you know of any place nearby leasing?”

Louis let out an approximation of congratulations while his mind raced. The flat he was in was alarmingly empty right now. And Liam was engaged, and polite, and had a job (sort of). What was the harm in asking if -?

“Hey, I live by myself right now, just a street over. I work with British Airways but I’m, er,” he paused, “on a break. So I need a little extra money coming in. Maybe you’d want to stay with me?”

The skeptical look that flitted across Liam’s face didn’t deter Louis. “You’d come check it out first, obviously. Come over for tea and then you can decide? But if I’m gonna be honest, I think we’d be a good fit.”

Louis plated two of the frozen meals for tea (Liam was a proper gentleman and didn’t mention it, though Louis knew he could tell) and, as far as he was concerned, charmed the hell out of Liam. He tried not to be smug about it when Liam nodded at the end of night and just said, “Okay.” But he _was_ pretty pleased.

**viii. amsterdam, netherlands | october 1984**

Because of the storm, British Airways Select Crew One was afforded a few extra days in the Netherlands, and hell if they weren’t going to make the most of it. Of course, when in Amsterdam, do as they do, right? They weren’t sixteen; they knew what they were doing. Sort of.

Niall wasn’t going to ask Zayn for the particulars, but when he came back smirking, shoving his hands into his coat pockets conspicuously and leaning close into Harry’s ear, he knew what was going on. But he, too, was invited upstairs with a sly grin, the girls stepping gingerly behind them so their heels wouldn’t click against the hardwood hallway.

“We look like we’re at a slumber party. Buncha girls in a ring on the floor in our kit,” said Perrie, digging her perfectly manicured nails into her pale thighs.

Shirtless, Zayn took a hit and quirked an eyebrow at her, motioning slightly frantically for her to come closer. Opening her mouth and pressing it against Zayn’s, her chest rising (nearly spilling) in her bra top, Perrie inhaled the smoke fully. She nodded and passed it, mouth-to-mouth, to Leigh-Anne, who laughed when Perrie pressed a little kiss to her nose immediately after.

Indignant, Jade whined, “You let all the smoke out!”

“Yeah, don’t get cross, but we only have so much of this,” Harry agreed, lighter flickering in front of his face, his eyes sleepy but bright green. His collarbones were pronounced as he hunched over himself, cross-legged on the hotel room rug.

“You mean I could only charm this much of this out of the ‘coffee shop,’” Zayn clarified, chuckling as he wrapped a hand around Harry’s to stop him toying with the lighter.

Harry shrugged. “That too.”

They smoked the remainder within a couple of hours, half-naked bodies in a haphazard heap on the floor in the room the boys were sharing. Niall found himself irritatingly clearheaded but altogether too hungry for the cannabis to have had no effect at all (which was saying something).

He remembered faintly that housekeeping was due to come round in only a few hours and that if the girls and the paraphernalia weren’t gone, they would all probably have some explaining to do. He had seen enough from what happened with Louis that that wasn’t a situation they wanted to be in at all. That was enough to get him to rouse Jesy, who helped him toss clothes in the general direction of their owner.

Zayn and Harry gazed up at them with hooded but alert eyes, nodding when Niall said, “Gonna get these ones into their room and pop down, grab som’t from the lobby shop and be back, yeah?”

It took some effort, but he stayed coherent enough throughout the endeavour to make it down to the lobby and back without a hitch. A biscuit in his mouth, Niall chewed slowly and fished the room key out of his pocket. His hand was hovering over the knob when he paused, a mixture of noises coming from inside the room.

Just because Niall wasn’t exactly _all there_ didn’t mean he was blind. Or deaf, as the case happened to necessitate. A distinct buzzing noise accompanied the – _oh_ – miscellaneous but very clearly Zaynlike and Harrylike groans peppering the air. Niall pulled his hand back like he had touched the kettle, but leaned so his ear was slightly closer to the door.

The scattered shouts and punctuated buzzes didn’t strike Niall as anything quite ordinary. His thoughts immediately jumped to _chainsaws, murders, like on the 60 Minutes specials, oh God why them, they were so young,_ until –

“Harry, no, oh my God, you can’t do that there! Oh, Jesus, okay, yeah, do it.” _Bzzzzzz._

_Oh._ Well. Jesus indeed.

Niall staggered back, his biscuit falling forgotten to the floor. He didn’t know the dirty details, but he was fucking positive he did not want to.

God, Zayn was _just_ talking about how he was going home next month and that would be the first time he’d seen Louis in ages. It didn’t sound to him like they had an… arrangement, or anything of the sort. Harry was good-looking, sure, and Niall’d be lying if he said he hadn’t thought about it, but that shit wasn’t fair to Louis. Louis had the right to know. _So I’ve got to tell him,_ Niall decided firmly.

He bounded back down the stairs, foot crushing the biscuit as he went.

**ix. london, england | november 1984**

Louis hung up the phone with a clatter. He stared for a moment at nothing in particular, eyes tracing the sponge and bottle of Flash on the countertop. Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to prolong the stream of air as long as he could. Fuming, he slammed his hand against the wall suddenly and knocked the cleaning supplies to the floor with distaste. He slid to the ground and bit his fist, resisting the urge to scream.

Liam darted into the kitchenette at the noise, calling, “Louis? Louis, are you all right?”

It took him a second to find Louis, folded up small between the two bar style chairs as he was. Liam stood a few feet away, gazing at Louis warily. “Why am I always finding you like this? What’s wrong, what’s happened? Is everything okay?”

Louis shook his head, standing up slowly. He swallowed. “I got a call from Niall.”

“That’s the Irish one from the flights, yeah? Engineer or officer or something?” Louis nodded. “Is everything all right? Something happen with Zayn?”

Snorting, Louis bit out, “You could fucking say that.” Liam’s eyes widened as Louis continued, “He’s fucking Harry, apparently.”

“Jesus,” said Liam. “Harry. He’s the-“

“The model tall one with Bambi eyes and curls to die over,” Louis tried to scoff, his voice turning on the last syllables.

Chewing on the inside of his cheek, Liam asked, “D’you want me to wait downstairs and turn them away when they come by?”

Louis thought about it. “No,” he decided. “I want to see them. Let me deal with it? Please? Just act normally.”

Liam opened the door when the boys arrived, Louis hanging on his arm like a spider monkey. “Hey, boys! Welcome home!” Louis shouted, exclamation points piercing the air as he spoke.

Zayn, who was in front, stepped back abruptly at the sight, and Louis could swear he saw the little tea lights flicker out in his eyes. Harry bit his bottom lip and looked over at Niall, who was giving Liam the up-down with one eyebrow quirked.

The rest of the afternoon passed in a similarly uncomfortable manner. Louis made a point to respond to Liam’s every movement with one of his own, more affectionate ones, like a flirtatious mirror.

He noticed smugly that Zayn’s face got increasingly steely throughout the evening. Harry’s face remained stuck on the crestfallen puppy-eyed look he wore so well, and Louis wanted to shake him violently, rattle his organs and scream in his face, “Get with the program, sunshine! You honestly don’t understand what’s gone on here?”

Zayn excused himself distractedly, tugging Harry behind him. Louis followed them with his eyes as they headed into the kitchen. He patted Liam’s face and purred, “You and Niall talk, yeah? I’ll be right back with some refreshments.”

Louis tiptoed closer to the kitchen, pressing his face against the other side of the wall.

“I don’t understand why he seems to hate me now, Z, I honestly don’t.”

“I know exactly what the fuck’s going on, Harry, and I thought we had it better than that for Lou to go and find some new guy to drape himself over like some hopeless fucking twink, and I don’t know why he’s taking this shit out on me. And on us.”

Zayn’s voice sounded strained, and Louis moulded his face into a smile as he entered. But before he could say anything, Zayn said, “We have to talk.”

And there it was.

“What about?” Louis simpered, crossing his arms and looking at Zayn.

“You know very well what. Who the hell is Liam? What’s going on?” Zayn moved closer to Louis, pressing a hand against the countertop.

“New roommate. And you tell me, Zayn, what is going on? Why haven’t I heard from you more than twice a month since August? Got pretty fucking lonely without you.” Louis laughed bitterly, pushing his hair out of his face. “But, then, you didn’t have that problem, did you? Never really did.”

Zayn growled, “Look, I don’t know what went through that head of yours when I was away, but I thought I made you a promise.”

“Me fucking too. Guess it didn’t turn out like we planned, hmm?”

Licking his lips and turning away, Zayn said, “Guess not.” After a beat, he added, “Staying at Harry’s tonight. And probably tomorrow and the next.”

“Bet you are,” Louis muttered, just as Zayn murmured, “I’ll call.”

Harry had the gall to look sorry as they left. Niall, in a generous move on his part, stayed with Louis and Liam. Or, rather, he stayed up all night talking about something - hamburgers, toilet jokes, the existence of breasts? Louis didn’t know - with Liam.

Louis, ever the gracious host, retreated to his pile of quilts for the week, staring mutely at the little glint of gold on his nightstand.

**x. rio de janeiro, brazil | december 1984/january 1985**

“It’s New Year’s Eve! Drink, dance, kiss a pretty girl,” the hotel manager had shouted at Zayn in Spanish, all but shoving him out the door. Against his will, he might add.

Zayn bought a beer from the hotel bar and waved the man off, shaking his head dismissively as he exited the building. He wandered through the streets, frowning and wiping the sweat off the back of his neck and wondering when he became such a textbook example of a Brooding Mess.

Zayn was young. He had his whole life ahead of him (or so he was told). He should be out dancing and kissing pretty people; it was New Year’s Eve and he was in Brazil! But it was New Year’s Eve and he was in Brazil, and he just wanted to be at home, where the one person he wanted to be with didn’t want to be with him.

He bought another beer, and then another, and pulled out the scrap of paper with the address of the club printed on it in Niall’s signature scrawl. Rubbing his eyes, Zayn glanced over the whole note.

_Going here tonight. If you make it out, come straight to us. The Copa, Street Aires Saldanha, 13A. Be careful. x NH_   
_P.S. I’m buying 2 rounds of cerveja if you come. tempting? .xx Styles_   
_p.p.s. please help me convince harry that, no, he does not seem cooler the more he says “cerveja” - jesy_

Zayn was no lightweight, but he was close to buzzing as he lumbered into the club. The decor wasn’t particularly nice (sixties-type kitsch that was probably actually from the sixties) but it was dim enough that it didn’t matter. One thing he _could_ say was that it smelled exactly as he expected it to.

Eyes heat-seeking a mess of blonde accompanied by a mass of curls, it took him too long to realise he probably wasn’t going to be able find them. Luckily, he didn’t have to, because Leigh-Anne found him first.

“Oh, hey, messy boy. Glad you made it out. Put that sad face away, darling, and put your sexy one on. It’s ten to midnight and you owe us a _lot_ of dances.”

It was kind of off-putting how regularly the girls tended to use the royal “we,” but Zayn accepted it as one of those stewardess things. He let Leigh-Anne pull him through the throng and shove him up beside Jade and Niall, who, in turn, shoved a glass of something into his hand. At this point, Zayn had lost track of how much he drank and he was starting to _feel_ it.

Niall clapped him on the back. “Good go, mate. I’m glad you came,” he said, pressing a kiss to Zayn’s cheek.

“‘ventful year it’s been, hannit?” Zayn said, nearly spitting out the mouthful of Foreign Nightmare Alcohol he had sipped without thinking. “Jesus, what the fuck is that?”

“Don’t know,” Jade chirped. “I ordered it at random.”

“Of course y’did.” Zayn downed the rest of it in a single fiery gulp.

He let the conversation wash over him for God knew how much longer until he just nodded vaguely and pushed into the crowd, finding Harry and slurring slightly, sighing into his ear, “Hello.”

The implied _beautiful_ did not go unnoticed. Harry took a step back and put a hand to Zayn’s face, looking him over thoroughly. “You’re extremely drunk.”

_“Um minuto, um minuto! Cinquenta e oito! Cinqüenta e sete!”_

Zayn started to laugh then, pressing his face against Harry’s clavicle. “Well, isn’t that just perfect!” he said, too loud and with too broad a grin. He was acutely aware that a few people had turned to look at him, but he lifted both his middle fingers and winked, openmouthed and sloppy.

This time last year he was on top of the world, and now Zayn was rock bottom. Funny how that happens, he figured, how all of a sudden your life takes a dip and you can’t dig your way out of it. And he was exhausted from trying to cope, so he gave up. He wasn’t going to waste his time trying to repair something he didn’t know he broke; he was, instead, going to stop giving a fuck.

As the wound-up countdowners yelled, _“Doze, onze, dez!”_ Zayn swallowed thickly, leaning into Harry’s ear. “Could you do me a favour?”

_“Oito, sete, seis!”_

Harry nodded, eyes wary, and Zayn put a hand to the back of his neck, threading his fingers through Harry’s curls. He popped up on the balls of his feet to rest his forehead against Harry’s, looking into his eyes, blinking slowly, pleading with him.

_“Três, dois, um - feliz ano novo!”_

Tracing Harry’s jawline with two fingers, Zayn pushed closer, tilting his face up to try to press his mouth against Harry’s. Harry’s eyes widened and he turned his head at the last second, Zayn’s lips catching his cheek instead.

“No,” he said firmly but quietly amidst all the noise.

Zayn crumpled, fingers digging into Harry’s shoulderblades, choking, “Please, Harry, please, I need-”

“No,” Harry repeated, with a softer tone this time, cradling Zayn’s face in both his hands. He thumbed away tears from Zayn’s cheeks. “Come with me.”

Harry wove his fingers through Zayn’s reassuringly and pulled him outside, where the air was thick with humidity and scattered horns and shouts and music pierced the sky. He sat with Zayn on the gravel, quiet. He let Zayn lean against him, his head on his shoulder, and he could probably feel him shaking. Harry let out a long breath, not quite a sigh.

“That was a mistake.” Zayn nodded silently in agreement as Harry continued, “It would have been bigger if I’d let you do it, though. You’re lonely, I know. I _know,_ Zayn, I see it on your face every day, and you’re killing me, because I don’t know what to do about it. You’re my best friend and I...” He paused, actually sighing this time and sweeping his fringe out of his eyes with his free arm. 

“You love Louis, and a stupid drunk kiss with me isn’t going to fix it. It’s only going to make it worse.”

Zayn sat up then, bringing his knees to his chest. “What am I supposed to do? Louis obviously doesn’t love me anymore. He’s gone on without me for nine months and I expected him to wait patiently like some princess in a tower, alone and hopeful?” Licking his lips, he opened his mouth and closed it again, shutting his eyes tight as he continued, “It’s our _day,_ Harry. Or, night, I suppose. Anniversary. Whatever. But the fact of the matter is, it isn’t anymore. I should respect that.”

Nudging Zayn’s knee with his own, Harry laughed gently. “Zayn, love, Louis is desperately in love with you. Or...” Zayn was grateful that he didn’t verbalise the lingering _at least, he was._ “He always has been. But it’s up to you to figure out what’s wrong before you ruin your life by letting go of the best thing that ever happened to you.”

**xii. london, england | january 1985**

Louis watched the holidays roll by, day by day, watched Liam drag in the little tree, trailing needles across the carpet. He managed to drape tinsel over it by himself, called his mother on Christmas and made sure his sisters got the gifts he had bought overseas, wished everyone at home a Happy New Year over the phone. He at least had that human decency remaining.

He tiptoed out of his “hobbit hole,” as Liam had dubbed it, blanket draped around his shoulders like The Homeless Avenger, trying to make it to the kitchen without being-

“Caught!” Liam shouted, wrapping his arms around Louis’ stomach and whirling him around easily.

Louis groaned. “I just wanted some tea, Liam.”

Laughing, Liam set Louis down gingerly. “But instead you get me! Don’t try to drink me, though.”

“Why would I do that, Liam,” Louis asked flatly, so monotone it was barely a question.

“I don’t know, Lou. But! Surprise! Since you made it all the way out here this lovely winter morning, I took the liberty of telling Leigh-Anne and Danielle that yes, in fact, you would love to have afternoon tea with them today.”

Louis groaned again, this time louder. “When did you turn into me?”

Chuckling, Liam pressed a kiss to the top of Louis’ bedhead. “When you decided _you_ didn’t want to be you anymore.”

Louis found it useless to argue with Liam, even though he clearly had said yes on Louis’ behalf several days earlier. Obviously Liam anticipated dragging him out of the house, come hell or high water. This was the easier way out. Liam could probably actually physically drag him out if he didn’t cooperate.

And that is how he ended up swaddled in a comfy-cosy, too-big jumper at a corner table in a little coffee shop with Liam, Leigh-Anne, and the very attractive Danielle. He reminded himself to thank Liam for picking Louis’ favourite place for tea.

“Sorry I haven’t been more attentive,” Louis apologised to Danielle. “I was just kind of... lost.”

She frowned. “No reason to be. I figured Liam would bring you round sometime.” She beamed at Liam, who shrugged.

Leigh-Anne interjected, “But, if it’s all right to ask, Lou, what the hell even happened with Zayn? I seem to have missed that exchange. All of a sudden he came back from November leave and he was miserable.”

A soggy-cornflake mixture of smug satisfaction and the last flakes of his shredded heart settled in Louis’ stomach at that. He tried to drown it with taking too many sips of tea at once and gave himself the hiccups. _A metaphor for my life if ever I saw one,_ Louis thought angrily.

He sighed. “Surely you know that he cheated on me.”

Leigh-Anne gasped, horrified. Well, then, clearly that _wasn’t_ common knowledge. “What! When? Who with?”

“Harry,” Louis muttered, his comfort level waning as his teacup grew emptier. Liam ordered another for the whole table.

Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “Harry? That’s not possible.”

“Oh, you’d find it’s very possible.”

Liam nodded. “They had a row when them and Niall came by. Zayn didn’t deny anything.”

Leigh-Anne shook her head so vigorously a hairpin fell out onto the table; the neon pink of it could nearly blind a man. She rested a hand on Louis’, rubbing her thumb along his knuckles soothingly. “That’s because there’s nothing to deny, my love. Absolutely nothing like you say happened actually happened, at least from what I’ve seen.”

Louis frowned. “But Niall said-”

“Niall jumps to conclusions. I don’t know, babe, he could be right, it’s not for me to say, but... I don’t think anything’s going on between Harry and Zayn. I suggest you ask him outright. Seems to me like you’re due for a chat anyway.”

He mulled this over for the next three hours, chewing it over in his mind like a cow chewing its cud. After fighting with himself for several minutes, Louis pulled out a shoebox of postcards from beneath his bed. He had considered ripping them all up into confetti when they started to arrive, but he could never bring himself to go through with it. Instead he had tossed them into the box and shoved it into the darkness beneath his four-poster.

Counting them as he laid them out on his blankets, Louis looked at all the cities in faded, slightly-torn card stock before him: Miami, Hong Kong, Amsterdam, Tokyo, Barcelona, Rio de Janeiro. He flipped them over one by one as if he were playing solitaire, working his way through the months he spent alone.

The first photos were silly, Zayn grinning in front of landmarks or poorly-translated shop signs, but as the weeks wore on, the images drifted away from posed shots. They were softer, more intimate: the corner of a pilot’s cap on a bedside table, the rooftops of a city glowing softly in the morning, a pile of foreign coin on a hotel rug. The white frames tugged Louis into the photos by his stomach, and he could almost smell Zayn’s cologne on the Mickey Mouse sweater from Tokyo, on the blankets and pillows from the bed in Barcelona. Heart caught in his throat, he gently pried the Polaroid off each postcard, revealing the block letters characteristic to Zayn underneath.

_Felt lost here._ and _Remember when you vomited in the hot spring?_ and _I love you._

Louis resisted the urge to cave in on himself as he had for the past several months. He stretched out instead, tracing the loop of the black-pen Z over and over until it was tattooed on the inside of his eyelids. One for each flight, for each city.

Rio, 31 December 1984: _Happy New Year, Louis. I miss you._

**xiii. dublin, ireland | march 1985**

No one even pretended to act surprised or impressed when Niall was able to fit twenty-three chips in his mouth all at once, especially after Perrie fit thirty into hers. But it didn’t really matter too much to him, because his mum and the rest of his family drove an hour out to Dublin just to catch him and the rest of Crew One and cart them all the way to Mullingar for an impromptu Welcome-to-Ireland/ Welcome-Home-Niall party. They were all sitting in Joe’s and it was familiar and Niall was eating and drinking with his best friends and his family and everything just seemed to _fit._

The warm chatter filling the air had everyone in good spirits; Harry was telling another one of his terrible jokes (the punch line to this one was “Because he had no hair!”) and Zayn and Leigh-Anne were discussing Prince’s latest hit single. Niall chewed thoughtfully on a bite of steak and sighed contentedly.

Harry leaned over to whisper something into Zayn’s ear, at which he laughed with his whole torso, his face scrunched up in a grin. Niall knit his eyebrows together.

“So are you guys going to tell us what’s going on between you two or are you going to try and maintain the worst-kept secret of all time?” Niall snapped, surprising himself. He pushed three bandito chips into his mouth and frowned.

Zayn looked startled, widening his eyes at Harry, who shrugged, perplexed. “What?”

Niall swallowed. “You’re not fooling anyone. You can tell us that you two are...” He waved his hand, uncomfortable. “Together?”

Harry let out a bark of laughter, but Zayn’s face was seemingly frozen. Harry said, “You’re joking, right, Ni? Good one, Nialler. You had me for a second!”

There was a lull of awkward silence until Zayn said, “Haz. I don’t... I don’t think he’s kidding.”

Niall nodded. “I’m not. I... _heard_ you guys. Going at it. In Amsterdam, and in Tokyo, in the hotel rooms when you thought I was gone.”

Perrie and Jade seemed more than interested now, their eyes a little bit brighter as they turned nearly 180 degrees to eavesdrop. Niall could practically see their ears perk up like little dogs, neon-polished paws hanging over the booth divider.

“Going at what?” Harry asked, pulling a face.

Zayn nodded. “All we did in hotels in the Netherlands and Japan was...” He screwed his face up, trying to remember.

Harry interjected suddenly, “Oh, my God. You thought we -?”

“Jesus,” Zayn gasped, bent over with laughter, a hand clutching at Harry’s arm. “You thought we were fucking?”

Niall withdrew slightly, his frown growing. He was a little bit offended. He wasn’t _stupid_. For clarification, he asked slowly, “So... you’re _not_ fucking, then?”

When Harry had calmed down significantly he said firmly, “Absolutely not.”

“Not even once,” confirmed Zayn.

Niall floundered for a response. “What the hell were you doing, then? Because there was an awful lot of moaning goin’ on.” His face flushed scarlet when he remembered the buzzing sounds and thought it best that he didn’t even mention it.

Zayn tugged on the back of his collar, pulling his shirt over his head. He tilted his head up to bring into the light his bare chest, displaying it unabashedly to Niall, who blushed. Zayn laughed, gentler this time, but pointed to each tattoo splashed across his skin, counting them under his breath. Harry pulled down his collar and showed Niall the nearly identical swallows below his collarbone, pushing up his shirtsleeves to show him the scattered doodles dotting his arms as well.

Niall swallowed slowly and fell into silence. He always considered himself a pretty carefree, laid-back guy, but the ferocity with which he had acted surprised even him. At least it was a relief to know that Zayn wasn’t cheating on Louis with Harry.

“Oh, fucking shit.”

Startled, Jesy chastised sarcastically, “Language, Nialler,” which was met with a giggle from Jade.

Shaking his head, eyes watering from how wide they grew, Niall said carefully, “I... have made... a mistake.”

Harry nodded, “That’s pretty clear, isn’t it?”

“No, you don’t understand,” Niall said urgently, Bambi eyes full-fledged and scared. “I called Louis a few months ago because I thought...” His voice grew small, and he withered under Zayn’s horrified expression. “You understand, right – everything appeared as though – oh, my God, I thought – Jesus Christ.” He hid inside his jumper, turning into the Headless Horseman and sinking down in his seat.

Zayn was quiet for a long time, and when Niall peeked his eyes out of his jumper, Zayn was cradling his face in his hands, breathing uneven and murmuring, “He thinks I cheated on him. Louis thinks I _cheated,”_ over and over again.

“I’m so sorry,” Niall squeaked. He was a syllable away from tears, and blinking quickly. “How do I fix this?”

Harry and Leigh-Anne both looked at him appraisingly. “Guess you’ve got a phone call to make, don’t you? Hm?” Leigh-Anne said, raising her eyebrows. Niall nodded vigorously and moved to stand up.

Zayn put a hand on Niall’s arm in an abortive gesture. In the lowest voice Niall had ever heard him use, he said, “And do _not_ fuck this one up.”

**xiv. london, england | april 1985**

It was Liam who opened the door, staring blankly at Zayn, who was shivering like a stray dog in the rain. When Liam made to shut the door, Zayn moved with Black Mamba-like swiftness, shoving his foot between the door and the jamb.

“Please,” he said, gazing up at Liam imploringly. “I didn’t cheat,” he added hopefully. His foot was beginning to ache where the door has slammed into it.

“I know.” Liam bit the inside of his cheek. “I’ll... I’ll ask.”

Relief flooded Zayn’s face and he grabbed Liam’s cheeks quickly in thanks. “Thank you, thank you!”

Liam tried to hide a smile as he disappeared into the flat, leaving the door ajar. Zayn glanced at it: too open to be accidental, but not open wide enough to be an invitation inside. He shifted his weight from foot to foot, biting at his fingernails anxiously as he stared at the doormat.

Reappearing suddenly, Liam said, “He doesn’t really want to see you.”

Zayn’s heart sank. Crestfallen, he nodded slowly. He should have anticipated this, even though Niall swore up and down that he and Louis had spoken long enough for him to fully explain the mistake. Louis didn’t _have_ to forgive Zayn for leaving him alone. _I left him alone._

“...but he’ll hear you out.”

Zayn whipped his head up at Liam’s voice. Five words had never sounded so good in his life. “Oh, thank God,” he breathed.

He padded cautiously into the flat, inhaling deeply as Liam shut the door behind them. Tugging on the sleeves of his Mickey Mouse jumper, he turned to Liam. “Did you ever...?” He couldn’t bring himself to finish the question.

Liam shook his head and gave Zayn a small smile. “No.”

Zayn smiled at him gratefully and took small, careful steps down the hallway. He took a deep breath and knocked softly on the bedroom door. “Lou?”

His throat caught when Louis’ voice floated through the door. The quiet “Zayn?” had him pressed up against the door, chest flush with the wood.

“Yeah,” he murmured into the light peeking through the jamb.

“Come in.”

Zayn turned the doorknob and found Louis sitting in the middle of the bed (their bed, he had to suppress). He looked small, folded up on himself like a well-worn teddy bear, but his eyes pierced Zayn more than they ever had. Zayn stood back, lingering on the image of Louis, tiny in the sea of blankets, and his heart ached.

Neither of them said anything for some time, but Louis patted the space beside him, and Zayn climbed onto the bed. They sat cross-legged, facing each other, knees touching, quiet.

The only thing Zayn could think to start with was, “I’m sorry.” From there the words cascaded out of him, and he could barely take a breath.

“I never... I never wanted us to be like this, Louis. Those people who think they’re made for each other but are really just fireworks that flare and disappear. That’s not us. We were special and that sounds so fucking stupid but the day you called us partners in crime feels like the first day of my life.

“I don’t think I can ever forgive myself for not owning up to my carelessness. For letting you do what you did for me.” Zayn shut his eyes tight, continuing breathlessly, “It’s all my fault you got grounded and suspended and I was selfish and stupid and, Jesus, why did you do that? I don’t deserve it, Lou.”

Louis sighed, his face pained. Zayn’s voice got quiet as he said, “And after all that I left you here, and I led you to believe I cheated on you. _Cheated_ on you, my God. I could never. I went mad when we fought and never regained my sanity.”

Zayn ran a hand through his hair helplessly, rushing out, “I don’t deserve you and I don’t expect you to forgive me because I’ve been a really shit person for the last year and I just wanted to tell you I’m sorry because I can’t be anything without telling you that I am _so_ sorry.”

Silence fell. After a few moments, Zayn begged, “Please say something.”

Louis exhaled slowly and handed Zayn the stack of postcards and Polaroids. Zayn folded his hands over them carefully, trying to smooth the worn and crinkled edges. He set them down on the bedside table and raked his eyes over Louis’ face, taking stock of his dark-lidded eyes and bed-rumpled hair. He was more tired-looking than Zayn remembered him.

Quiet, Louis said finally, “I can’t be Harry. I can’t be what he is, all charm and smile and beautiful.”

“Don’t,” Zayn snapped, harsher than he intended it to sound. He softened. “Don’t do that to yourself. It’s never been Harry. It’s always been you.”

Louis let out a breathy laugh, eyes sad. “Then why have I been sitting here for a year, miserable and full of regrets and feeling sorry for myself? Because I feel weightless and pointless here alone and I’m all out of ideas and I want to die because I love you and maybe you just forgot to call again, or maybe you’re on the plane that’s about to plummet into the ocean and I’m not there with you.”

A choked noise escaped from Zayn’s throat then, and his hands scrambled to find Louis’ face. “No,” he said firmly, repeating, “No, no, no. I will not let you forget this. You are so important, Louis,” Zayn insisted, weaving his fingers through Louis’ and pressing them against his lips. “You are the most important part of me.”

Louis’ face crumpled and he leaned forward, collapsing against Zayn’s chest. They instinctively rearranged their legs to fit together better and Zayn began to laugh shakily. Louis tilted his head back to look up at Zayn, eyes wet and shimmering.

“Are we going to be okay?” he asked quietly.

Zayn used the back of his hand to wipe his eyes and leaned down, pressing his forehead against Louis’. “Yeah, I think so. If you want us to be.”

Louis shifted slightly, chests flush against each other, and pressed his mouth to Zayn’s. It wasn’t a kiss so much as they were breathing into each other, and Zayn didn’t want to move away for fear that Louis would disappear. Instead, he reached a hand up to brush Louis’ hair out of his eyes.

“I do want us to be.”

They lay back on the blankets in a comfortable silence, curled up into each other like cats.

Liam knocked on the door gently, poking his head into the bedroom without waiting for a response. His face split into a grin when Louis hissed at him. “Do you kids need anything?” he asked, wringing his hands.

“Get _out,_ Liam,” Louis groaned.

Zayn laughed into the crook of Louis’ neck and said, “Actually, I could do with a glass of water. Am I allowed to make requests now? Is that cool?”

“No,” sulked Louis. Zayn kissed his nose, and Louis’ mouth twisted as he tried not to smile.

“Gross,” laughed Liam, who disappeared again as quickly as he had entered.

Zayn snuggled closer to Louis, who cursed softly. “Where’s he going to live now?” He peered up at Zayn. “You _are_ moving back in, right?”

“Of course, love. And no need to worry there. I have it on good authority that our favourite Niall is _quite_ enamoured with Liam Payne,” said Zayn, raising his eyebrows suggestively. After a few beats, he said, “I’m going to make a call tomorrow, though. See if a year’s punishment isn’t enough for the best purser British Airways has ever had.”

Louis shook his head, glowing in Zayn’s direction. “We’ll see.”

He pulled something small and shiny out of his pocket. Letting Louis close his hand around the gold pin, Zayn agreed.

_Yeah, we’ll see._

**Author's Note:**

> this fic was a labour of love!! i'm quite proud of this one, despite it only being my second fic for one direction. this took ages to write, much longer than it probably should have, but it absolutely would not have come together if not for my trusty coherency beta and moral supporter [msmoocow](http://archiveofourown.org/users/msmoocow/). thank you for everything!!! xo
> 
> originally written for team au for the [1d olymfics](1d-olymfics.livejournal.com). crossposted to my [livejournal](http://hanschenfangirl.livejournal.com/135213.html).


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